How to Use Your Transferable Skills to Get Your Dream Job

Changing careers is a big step. And one of the scariest parts of that transition process is the idea of starting over. 

You may feel like your past experience and work have been wasted because you’re starting from the beginning.

You’re a newbie in the field again. 

You don’t have as much to offer. 

And going from a high professional status back to square one can seem like a step in the wrong direction (even if it’s the job you’ve always wanted.) 

BUT, this isn’t actually true. 

All because of a little handy thing called transferable skills.

Transferable skills are the skills you’ve honed over the course of your previous career and that overlap with your new career. 

These skills are instrumental in helping you secure a role or position in your new field. 

By highlighting transferable skills, you showcase your expertise to potential employers and convince them that you’re a good fit for the job. 

Transferable skills give you an edge over others competing for the same position, especially if they are skills that are difficult to train. These skills are what employers look for and having them under your belt will increase your chances of getting hired. 

Every job has its own, unique job requirements. For example, the company might be looking for a person that has excellent social skills and can communicate with diverse groups of people in various settings. 

In this case, highlighting your ability to communicate effectively is a transferable skill on your resume. 

There are two types of transferable skills: hard and soft. 

Hard transferable skills are those that are either teachable or measurable. 

For example:

• Math
• Reading
• Writing
• Computer and Technical Skills

Soft transferable skills are those that are difficult to teach or measure:

For example:

• Active Listening
• Time Management
• Problem-Solving
• Research
• Teamwork
• Leadership Skills
• Communication Skills

• Organization 

Once you start working in a company, you automatically start developing new transferable skills and hone the ones you have. 

These skills will be assets to you and your future, especially when changing careers. These skills impress the employer, and can even score a pay raise or promotion.

They show how much you’ve grown in your professional life, how flexible you are in your ability to adjust your skills to meet new situations, and also how you have an inclination toward adopting new skills. 

The longer you work with a company, the more expansive and refined your transferable skills become.

Let’s take a look at a few examples:

The most necessary and sought-after skills in the retail market are customer service, effective communication, friendliness, and the ability to get along with diverse groups of people. 

These skills can also be used in office-based jobs and even corporate situations where you deal with a large clientele on a daily basis. So if you’re shifting to an office-based job, highlighting these transferable skills on your resume can showcase your expertise to a potential employer. 

Similarly, in management, leadership skills are essential. 

Leadership skills can also be used in industries such as academia, hospitality, customer support, or really any job that requires you to perform as a manager. You’ll want to build these skills if you are moving into a management position. 

Soft skills can be the most difficult to develop because they take a lot of exposure to different situations within the workplace to learn and evolve. 

For example, becoming an effective communicator takes time, practice, and experience. These are skills you cannot simply acquire by studying or taking a bunch of online classes. You need to experience and work at communicating over time to become good at it. 

In this way, transferable skills can be highly valuable on your resume and help you move to the career you want. 

The initial way to showcase your skills is on your resume. 

You want to be specific and measurable: Tell your potential employer exactly what you did, in a quantifiable way. 

When revising a resume, keep in mind that there can be too much of a good thing. You don’t need to include all your experiences. Keep your resume short (preferably one page but not more than two pages). Keep it simple. 

Don’t simply list the skills you possess. Instead, explain what you did in a specific, quantifiable way. 

For example, showing how you led Acme Cosmetics in their So Fresh, So Clean campaign, and brought them a $2 million increase in sales, is much more impactful than saying, “I have commendable leadership qualities,” (which is a phrase used on many resumes). 

You want your skills to stand out.

Use the CAR technique to highlight your skills and experience. 

• Challenge - what were the challenges you faced?
• Action - what was the action you took to overcome those challenges? 
• Result - what was the outcome of your action?

Using the CAR (Challenge, Action, Result) method, you can come up with statements that tie your transferable skills directly to your accomplishments. This allows potential employers to think about how you can use those same skills for them. 

Don’t underestimate the power of transferable skills in helping you land the role you’re applying for. These skills will give the employer a reason to consider you for the job even if you are lacking in the more technical areas of the job requirement. 

Start thinking about your current job and experiences in terms of what is transferable. Make a list of what your hard and soft skills are and what is applicable to your desired industry. 

Make sure your resume is attractive and that the transferable skills are highlighted so they instantly catch the eye of the reader. Be specific and quantifiable. Use the CAR method to highlight how you respond to challenges and ways your skills can directly impact how you relate to this new company. 

• Transferable skills are skills gained from previous roles that can be transferred to other positions. 
• Transferable skills are one of the things employers look for and having them under your belt will increase your chances of being hired and are especially critical to highlight when transitioning to a new career. 
• Make a list of your hard and soft transferable skills and make sure to highlight the relevant ones on your resume.
• Quantify the results of the challenges you’ve faced when you’ve used your transferable skills to solve a problem. 
• Use the CAR technique to highlight your transferable skills for greater impact.